Answers Rarely Come Easy
by scorpion22
Summary: Alexandra Deetz has lived her entire life surrounded by mysteries, but when the mysteries start to reveal themselves how will she react?


Chapter 1

Alexandra Deetz was strong-willed, fearless, and deeply haunted by the things she didn't know. When it came to her origins, she knew absolutely nothing about herself. What she did know was few and far between. Her mother had been fifteen when she had her and she had never known any other way of life. Her mother didn't date, she never had for as long as Alexandra had been alive; in almost every way she had raised her daughter alone. An unwed mother who figured it out as she went and done the best she could, for that Alexandra was always grateful, and loved her mother deeply even as she questioned everything about her.

" Why don't I have a daddy?" The question used to leave Alexandra throughout her life until eventually she stopped because the hurt look in her mother's eyes always froze her making her store her discontent away, leaving her simply to wonder. Her mother would never tell her, she learned that along with the fact that if she wanted answers it would be up to her to find them. Even her aunt Barbara and uncle Adam avoided the subject of who or where her father might be. They avoided it worse then even her mother. Whenever she asked, they didn't even grace her with that cold stare or anything at all. They would simply walk away and when they saw her again, they would act as if she'd never asked the question at all. So much so that Alexandra stopped asking them as well.

Alexandra Deetz inherited many of her traits from her mother. In fact, she emulated her mother more then she cared to admit. Lydia Deetz had been forced to grow up quickly. She had ceased to want to die, but in her daughter found a reason to live. Lydia taught her daughter to be strong, to rely on oneself, and how to survive. Unfortunately though, as much as Alexandra emulated Lydia, there were also ways in which the two were complete opposites. In fact, in many ways they differed as much as they were of one mind. Lydia was reserved, some said there was a dark aura about her especially when they met her, all dressed in black with a camera in her hand. And there was one thing that Lydia envied in her daughter. Where Alexandra was fearless, Lydia was not. Lydia could remember a time when she was, but that had slipped away. She became scared of everything, of anything that might be looming unseen in the future.

" Beetlejuice" That name from Lydia Deetzs past is what haunted her dreams, though her daughter didn't know that, she only knew something from before she was born had shook her so bad that its memory haunted her still, but the girl never asked why. Unlike Alexandra, Lydia was haunted by the things she did know, her daughter saw it in her eyes.

Lydia Deetz never looked at ease even when she was looking through the lens of a camera. She always looked haunted. Like some memory was always running through her mind. She had looked that way for as long as Alexandra could remember. Even as a little girl, Alexandra could scarcely remember a time when her mother smiled, when her dark eyes didn't look drawn off into the past. Now that she was older, Alexandra read into it what she could. Something bad had happened to her mother; something Lydia didn't want to remember, but couldn't forget. After awhile, Alexandra began to notice that look deepening with the frozen stare that came with any mention of her father. That look sunk to the very depths of her soul the older she became and Alexandra often wondered what had happened to make her mother this way. And what her father had to do with it. So much so that the subject had become forbidden and yet, she still wondered about him.

" What did he do to make her look that way?" Alexandra wondered this often, but never let it pass her lips; whatever it was, she knew it must be something terrible because her mother wouldn't even say his name. The older she got, the more Alexandra wondered about this ghost of a man until her fifteenth birthday came and went.

That was when Alexandra began to lose her patience. She thought she was old enough now to know the truth even if it was gruesome. At fifteen, she was the same age her mother had been when she was born, and yet, she was coddled as if she was no bigger then five. It angered her even as she saw that hollow look in her mother's eyes everyday. Alexandra was growing tempted to breach the subject of her father. Living in a place like Winter River Connecticut, there wasn't much else she could do. She was left to wonder about her father most days when no one knew what she was thinking about. To wonder what he looked like? If he was the reason her hair was blond rather then her mother's inky black? To wonder if he even knew she existed? If he would care or haunt her life the way he had her mother's? The more the questions built up inside her, the more Alexandra began to brace herself to ask them to the woman with all the answers. Alexandra had lived in Winter River Connecticut all her life. She had been born there and despite it all, she couldn't imagine leaving. It wasn't just because she knew her mother never would or because her aunt and uncle wouldn't either, but because of the very questions roiling around inside her. There was a feeling she had inside. A mysterious almost mystic calling almost that told her that the answer were right waiting for her to find them. Like leaving Winter River wouldn't bring her answers, but take her farther from finding them. And so, Alexandra stayed in Wintwr River, always searching for answers without any idea as to what she was looking for.

She felt like her answers were here, hidden by the very people around her. Hidden in the walls of the old White House on the hill and yet, revealing them was what she was finding to be impossible. Maybe that was why her mother would never leave Winter River?Maybe she was making sure secrets remained secrets? She claimed other things were the reason. Her aunt and uncle, her art, even claimed there was nowhere else to go, but that hollow look gave more answers then her mother did. Alexandra suspected her mother was safeguarding something.

" Winter River is our home" Lydia said that with as much warmth as she could manage, but Alexandra didn't believe them, there was something hidden behind her words that made her think Winter River was not so much a home as a prison, but she didn't tell her mother that. At fifteen, she knew it even as she didn't. She knew that their staying was more then her or her mother or even Adam and Barbara. It all lay in the past she suspected and yet, she could find nothing that taught her the history of it. Her aunt and uncle were worse about it then even her mother.

Adam and Barbara never left the house. Not ever. They didn't come to any of Alexandra's school events or her mother's art shows. Alexandra could remember being a little girl begging them to come outside to play, but they never came. No one would ever tell her why. It was strictly told to her that aunt Barbara and uncle Adam never left the house.

" It's dangerous for Adam and Barbara on the outside" Lydia didn't explain anymore to her daughter, maybe because she wanted her to have as normal a childhood as she was able or because she didn't know how to explain it, Alexandra didn't know even as she questioned it. They just didn't leave. Sometimes, Alexandra got the feeling her mother wanted her to stay locked away too. That she wanted to keep her safe in that house and never let her leave, but she didn't try to lock her away. She let her run, jump, and be free. She protected her even as she did this and shielded her from whatever demons that lay hidden from Alexandra's sight. Her daughter recognized that. Some times she resented it. Others she was grateful and sometimes, she was both. Only now that she was older did Alexandra begin to question that just as she questioned everything else she hadn't before. Like the attic. The attic had been a great looming mystery all her life. A place right above her head, but just out of reach. A mere few stair steps away and yet, she never dared go up those steps because that was yet another thing that was forbidden. Her whole life, she'd never been allowed to step foot there, and she suspected if her mother had her way, she never would.

The door was always locked and yet, sometimes, Alexandra could swear she heard someone moving up there.

" Nothing's up there, you're just hearing things" Alexandra didn't believe that though, she couldn't, because she could feel that they were all lying to her, that somehow the mysteries were trying to reveal the truth to her, finally, she just had to listen. Like the mysteries she had been born around were moving somehow, trying to unravel, and uncoil like a snake to slither into the light. It was two days after her fifteenth birthday, Alexandra had just moved into the room next to her mother's the day before. The change made her feel beyond her years. Like her mother was finally seeing her for the woman she was becoming instead of the little girl she used to be. She felt freer then she had ever been. She had always shared a room with her mother, but now, it was changing. She finally had a place all her own. They had unlocked the room next door and given it to her. It was like the first of the great mysteries was being unveiled and to Alexandra, it spelt out the beginnings of the answers she had long searched for.

" It's time I let you have a place of your own" Lydia had said it as she unveiled the room to her daughter, and Alexandra wouldn't deny being confused, happy, and completely astounded all at the same time. Alexandra had found the room cold. No one had been in there in years. Remnants of a shattered mirror laid on the floor and once that was cleaned up, the house was mirrorless again, and Alexandra was left alone for the first time since she had been born. All the white sheets were removed from the furniture first then she moved her own things in.

" Make it your own" Alexandra had started to do that the very day the room was given her and yet, when it appeared on her freshly made bed, she didn't notice right away despite the secrets she'd been searching for all her life. It hadn't been there before, Alexandra was sure of that because she had made the bed before doing anything else and it was just there when she came back. A plain, black worn diary of sorts with a broken lock across the front. When she opened it, she saw two things, one after the other. They were both written in her mother's handwriting. The first read, _this is the diary of Lydia Deetz._The second, something different altogether. It read as follows. _He said his name was Beetlejuice._


End file.
